PALM BAY, Fla. -- Following its announcement of a strategic partnership to develop space-qualified hybrid chips, Intersil Corp. here today announced three new product categories that address power-management challenges faced by communication satellite designers (see April 26 story).
Intersil's Star*Power family includes radiation-hardened MOSFETs, ICs and other integrated power solutions. ICs and MOSFETs provide consistent and reliable power to communications devices. The extreme radiation and temperature environment of space requires devices that are reliable and capable of withstanding these harsh conditions.
Star*Power power management ICs are designed and fabricated using a proprietary Intersil radiation-hardened silicon gate (RSG) process and are guaranteed to 300 krad(Si). This process enables the devices to withstand conditions unique to space environments. The devices minimize low dose rate effects, are immune to latch-up, and provide significant reductions in size, weight, cost and parametric variation over temperature and radiation.
Intersil's Star*Power discrete power offering includes two product series, Star*Power MOSFETs and Star*Power Gold MOSFETs, each spanning six voltage ranges: 30, 60, 100, 150, 200 and 250 volts. Star*Power MOSFETs are optimized for on-resistance and total dose radiation performance and are rated for a total dose capability of up to 300 krad(Si). Star*Power Gold MOSFETs are optimized for gate charge, are guaranteed to 100 krad(Si) and include Single Event Effects (SEE)capability in relation to both Single Event Gate Rupture (SEGR) and Single Event Burn Out (SEB) with a Linear Energy Transfer (LET) rating of 82.
Intersil will soon add a series of direct current to DC-to-DC converters to the Star*Power family of distributed power solutions. The first product in this series, an 80-watt DC-DC converter,
will be avaliable in May.